Letters to the Editor: Sanctions on Russia will come back to bite West
Russian president Vladimir Putin: He has demonstrated a calculated and pragmatic approach that has seen him retain power since 2000. Picture: Andrei Gorshkov/AP
Apart from some well-thought-out analysis by letter writers in the always-balanced , the majority of commentators in all media are singing like lemmings from the same hymn sheet.
There are a number of reasons why sanctions won’t work on Russia.
Firstly, Putin, far from being a madman, has demonstrated a calculated and pragmatic approach that has seen him retain power since 2000.
In contrast, Western democracies change leaders every four or five years, leading to constant changes of direction and often complete reversals of previous policies.
The US and Britain are two recent classic examples of this weakness.
Secondly, immediately after succeeding Yeltsin in 2000, Putin reined in the most profligate of the newly minted Russian oligarchs, such as Kodorkovsky, and returned their ill-gotten gains to the Russian treasury.
He knows that the current foreign-based oligarchs — whose properties in London, France, and elsewhere are being sanctioned by the West — will out of necessity be forced back into his orbit and under his control, when they might otherwise have been tempted to flee the nest, abandon Russia and cleave to Europe.
Fourthly, Russia is the world’s largest producer of grain and other food products, so Russians will not run out of food as the Germans and Japanese did in the Second World War.
Russia can hold out for decades if necessary. In fact, the price of wheat for Western Europe has already doubled.
Fifthly, Russian scientists and universities are among the world’s best, both at innovating new technology and stealing Western technology, as are the Chinese, so they will quickly replicate what the West thinks it can deprive them of.
Finally, Russia has signed accords with China and India, the two most populous countries in the world, to send their essential exports eastward to the rising new world hegemonies of the Orient.
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan will follow, along with the rapidly developing Chinese client states in Africa.
The Swift method of payments will quickly be replaced by the Chinese Cips, established in 2015, and sanctions will come hurtling back to bite the West.
I am distraught each day as I see the horrific images from Ukraine.
Here we see a proud nation of 44m people being systematically destroyed by the ‘Hitler of the 21st century'. Despite daily appeals from president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the western world sits on its hands, and cries: “Sorry old boy, but you are not one of us Nato-ites.”
What unadulterated cowardice.
Was Vietnam in Nato? Was Afghanistan in Nato? Was Iraq in Nato? No. Maybe they were softer targets for the western powers.
And Ireland is not in Nato. I listen to the naivety of others who talk about our neutrality — as if one word would save a country that has no defence from the murderous tactics of Putin. After all, he did a comprehensive naval reconnaissance off the Irish coast recently.
After Ukraine, Putin’s next targets are likely to the Baltic states that once comprised the Soviet Union.
He makes no secret of his ambition to reconstitute the Soviet Union.
He has thrown down the gauntlet to Europe, Nato, and the US. The western powers have been found wanting.
God save Ukraine.
The Peace and Neutrality Alliance as well as MEPs Mick Wallace, Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, and Clare Daly, among others, apportion a considerable degree of blame to Nato for the horrific situation in Ukraine.
They clearly infer a moral equivalence between Nato deployment to members neighbouring Ukraine and Russia in response to the latter’s build-up of forces and the unprovoked invasion aimed at overthrowing a democratically elected government, annexation of considerable parts of it’s territory, and reducing Ukraine to a vassal state.
Western powers’ misjudgements and apparent weakness in response to the annexation of Crimea undoubtedly encouraged Putin in his belief that there would be no serious consequences to his actions and, to that extent, have contributed to the current situation.
However, there is no moral equivalence between these misjudgements and the barbarity being inflicted by Russia on a weaker neighbour.
To suggest that such exists is fatuous in the extreme and reflects poorly on the judgement (and perhaps the values) of those who do so.
It is also relevant that Nato has not committed forces to the conflict, notwithstanding the moral and legal justification for such action, in the light of the unprovoked aggression.
Given this fact, it is hard to understand how anybody could argue that Nato, by stationing military assets in central and eastern Europe in response to Russian pre-invasion deployment, presented a security threat to the latter.
These assets constitute a formidable obstacle to Russia reincorporating the Baltic states into its orbit, either as constituent states of the Russian Federation or vassals.
Notwithstanding the likely success of his operations in Ukraine, Putin will think hard before moving into the Baltic states provided Nato stays united.
Ireland, meanwhile, continues to worship at the sacred cow of it’s so-called neutrality and refuses to contribute to the EU fund providing military hardware to Ukraine.
We might reflect on the fact that our undefended neutrality is only possible because we benefit from our geographical location, which allows us to have de facto and free Nato protection.
At the same time, we refuse to assist in providing arms to a country that does not have such advantage and is fighting for it’s very existence. This is a shameful stance.
We claim to favour the rule of law in international relations, presumably with goodwill on all sides. The likely success of Russia in this instance does not bode well for our reliance on same.
The facts on the European stage have changed. Ireland needs to reconsider its attitude to security in this new reality.
Meanwhile some politicians and organisations need to conduct their own reality check.
David O’Reilly tells us that once we are baptised we are always Catholics — Sorry atheists — you can never stop being a Catholic (Irish Examiner, Letters, March 5).
I was christened in 1961 but I wish the Church luck collecting my Easter dues. I’m out.
Your reader is worried that the Catholic Church says that anybody ‘baptised a Roman Catholic ... will always be a Roman Catholic’.
First, agnostics and atheists by definition do not care in the least what the Catholic Church thinks about anything, which very much includes the Church’s opinion of anybody’s membership of that church.
On the other hand, since he wrote you a letter on the subject, your reader does indeed seem to care very much what the Catholic church thinks on this subject and so, by definition, is still a Catholic (even if lapsed).
